Gone
by page-394-always1
Summary: Eight months, two weeks, and five days since Voldemort came back, since Cedric Diggory was found dead, and since Hermione Granger's best friend was announced missing. And, yes. She had been counting. AU.


**Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling. This fic was partially inspired by Paffy's "Behind Blue Eyes" and neutral's "The Persistance of Memory". They are both really good fics that I highly suggest you read. **

**Thank you to Erin for beta-ing.**

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**Chapter One**

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Eight months, two weeks, five days, one hour, and forty-nine minutes since the aurors came to Hogwarts.

Eight months, two weeks, five days, and thirty-one minutes since Headmaster Albus Dumbledore announced that You-Know-Who is back.

Eight months, two weeks, five days, and thirty-two minutes since her best friend was announced missing.

Eight months, two weeks, three days, and twenty minutes since any evidence of what happened  
that night had been found.

Eight months, one week, six days, three hours, and five minutes since the memorial service for Cedric Diggory.

Seven months, five days, twenty-three minutes since she was introduced to the members of the Order of the Phoenix.

Seven months, five days, forty-one minutes since she discovered the library at Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Seven months, five days, and thirty-nine minutes since she began her search.

Eight months, two weeks, five days, four hours, and three minutes since she last saw her best friend.

And, yes. She had been counting.

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Miss Hermione Granger had always fancied thinking of herself as a clever and brilliant professor one day. It had been seven months, exactly, since she had given up that notion. How could she be even close to being a professor, nonetheless clever or brilliant, if she couldn't find her best friend? The best friend that she had come to think of as her brother? Her little brother that needed her protection even if he always refused it?

She wiped at her face, frustrated. She shook her head profusely, pulling herself out of the emotional dump she was in, and plunged herself back into the book she was currently studying. If she couldn't go out and search for him, you can be dang sure she'd do everything in her power to help.

And that is exactly what she did.

When she wasn't in class, she was in the Hogwarts' library, searching and searching for _something_. **Anything**. Anything at all.

She hadn't even found that.

* * *

It was not until the second month into the term did Hermione Granger realize how useless the Hogwarts' library really was. It had shelves upon shelves, stacks of books just laying around, waiting to be read, yet, all the library held was material to help with schoolwork.

The basics.

She didn't need that though. Whatever spell or potion that would locate him was definitely not going to be found if she kept looking at the basics of magic. And so, she moved on. The Restricted Section held so many possibilities, it overwhelmed her. She couldn't grasp what she was reading most of the time. She had ended up studying all those books about three times each until Madam Pince banned her from that particular section of the library.

Ron told her it was for the best, 'you've already studied nearly every book in the library how many times?'

She didn't listen.

He said a lot of things these days. 'How 'bout you come eat in the Great Hall tonight, with me, ey?' 'Come on, Hermione, time for bed.' 'What did you think of History of Magic today?' 'You missed Runes, Hermione. I think it's time for you to take a break.' 'Let's head down to the kitchens, I bet Winky will have something ready for you.' 'It's Hogsmeade weekend - let's head down and see if there's any new books, it's on me. I'll even get you a butterbeer!' 'Did you get your essay done? I wasn't sure - I have an another version of mine, if you want it. You probably won't get an 'O' but  
better then not turning one in, right?'

Mister Ron Weasley was almost always beside her. He would either be studying - helping her - next to her, or he'd be with her late into the night, working on homework or some such. Sometimes, if she had skipped some classes, Ron would magically appear with a small stack of food for her, and always, _always_, with a stack of notes for her.

He was always taking notes now. His head bowed, his quill moving furiously across his parchment, as if he couldn't bear to miss one word; he rarely ever looked up in class unless they had to use their wands. This was a fact that did not go unnoticed by the professors and students of Hogwarts. Everyone drew the conclusion that he was either afraid of forgetting something important, like something that could help his best friend, or he did it because he knew his bushy haired best friend no longer cared about such things as taking notes and homework and someone had to do it for her.

Many suspected the latter.

It hadn't always been like that. Everyone always knew that Hermione Granger was the more school focused one of the trio. Many remarked she should have been in Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor. Ron, of course, was the one that was sorely lacking in the schooling field. He was decent at his classes… just not a match to Hermione Granger.

It was a well known fact that if Hermione Granger had never taken notes in the past four years of Hogwarts, Ron Weasley's grades would undoubtedly be in a sore state. Imagine the surprise when Ron Weasley, notorious no-note taker, had started to keep notes so furiously?

Hogwarts supposed it was after the Gryffindor fifth year's first lesson with the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge. It was rumored that Hermione Granger got into an argument with the professor when the teacher claimed that her best friend, "is a no good, attention seeking brat who is no doubt enjoying the fame he is gaining with this despicable plot of his."

Granger, of course, refused to stand by and listen to the woman speak of her missing best friend like that. And Weasley, of course, refused to stand by and listen to that woman talk to and about his best friends like that.

In the end, Granger had stormed out of the class, and had yet to be spotted in the same room as Umbridge. Umbridge assigned detentions to both Granger and Weasley (which Granger had yet to attend). Weasley ended up silently glaring and taking notes during DADA - when there was anything useful said.

In short, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley were not the same without the other part of their trio.

The hardest thing was that the only person that could fix it, was the very person whom they were grieving over, Harry Potter.

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_A/N: This is a rewrite. It won't be too different then the original. There will just be a slight time jump and the chapters in the original one might comeback as flashbacks or be mentioned later on. Thank you for reading! _

_+page-394-always1_


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